All-time most popular paid and free iPad applications

(Distimo)

Apple’s own word publishing application, Pages, is the most popular free application of all time in the US iPad App Store while the most popular free application award goes to Apple's iBooks e-reading app.

"Many of the most popular applications released at launch have remained popular over the entire year and are still among the top 25 most popular applications as of March 2011," said app store analyst Distimo in a report published on April 27.

Pages, iBooks and Penultimate are among the list of apps which were popular at launch and made it into the all-time most popular lists of iPad apps.

The majority of applications in the iPad App Store are in the Books category (22 percent) followed by Games (18 percent), Education (11 percent), Entertainment (8 percent) and Lifestyle (6 percent).

Unlike most other app stores where pricing has raced to the bottom, applications for the iPad have become more expensive over time. The average price of an iPad application is now $5.36, up from $4.34 in mid 2010.

"It will be interesting to see if, with regard to applications, the newly released BlackBerry QNX and Google Android Honeycomb will develop in a similar manner," comments Distimo.

All-time most popular free applications:
1. iBooks
2. The Weather Channel Max
3. Netflix
4. Kindle
5. ABC Player

All-time most popular paid applications:
1. Pages
2. Angry Birds HD
3. Goodreader for iPad
4. Penultimate
5. Numbers